


Vyalīka

by avani



Series: The Vilomita 'Verse [2]
Category: Baahubali (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, Prequel, posted from tumblr
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-04
Updated: 2018-02-04
Packaged: 2019-03-12 00:41:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,661
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13536012
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/avani/pseuds/avani
Summary: When the news comes that a guest wishes to meet with him, Jayasena is alone and aweary and very, very afraid.





	Vyalīka

**Author's Note:**

> Prequel to [Vilomita](https://archiveofourown.org/works/12230001), but you should probably read that one first.

When the news comes that a guest wishes to meet with him, Jayasena wants very much to refuse. Both his mother’s crown and his father’s turban as regent are too large for him still, and he is alone and aweary and very, very afraid.

But: “I recommend you agree to see her,” advises Lord Shashank, and because he does not know what else to do, Jayasena agrees.

The Lady before him has no name. Her fine clothes are filthy, her graying hair--surely caused by starvation and stress rather than age--unadorned in its plain bun, and her countenance forbidding. The news she brings with her is no less terrible.

“Martand would have to be a fool to destroy our country just to have his way,” Jayasena says through suddenly numb lips when she has finished. “To ruin our trees and raze our fields simply because we refused his terms is–-is unthinkable.”

“No fool, but a monster, certainly,” says the Lady. “And you’ll find, boy, that what is unthinkable to you is unremarkable to others.”

Jayasena straightens. “If you mean only to condescend to me, you may take your leave.”

She studies him for a long moment. “How many years have you seen?”

“Eleven.”

“The mistake was mine,” she says at last. Her tone is melancholy. “Boy no longer, but a king. And what choice will you make for your people, O King?”

Jayasena’s heart beats faster; he wishes he could be sure that he will make the right choice. “It will be as you say,” he decides at last. “We leave at dawn.”

*

The Lady leads them to caves on the very border of Mahishmati where she swears they will be safe.

“Perhaps you and I have differing notions of safety,” Jayasena tells her. “Or is it merely to make it easier for Martand to pick us off?”

The Lady looks down her nose at him. “The last place Martand will seek you is somewhere so close to his kingdom. He’ll waste his time combing Singapuram and the courts of your father’s people and never think to search anywhere else.”

In whose hands has he put all his trust–all his people’s safety?

“You seem to know him well.”  _Too well_ , Jayasena thinks but does not say.

“I know that I underestimated him once,” the Lady replies. “I shall not make that mistake again.”

*

During the journey, whenever Devasena flees her nurse, Jayasena knows he can find her in the Lady’s company. She finds the Lady amusing, for some incomprehensible reason; the Lady’s dark moods and drawled insults reflect off of her just as arrows do fine armor. 

Devasena has always had a taste for danger, Jayasena thinks disapprovingly.

But what truly surprises him is the Lady’s response: in his baby sister’s presence, her smiles grow more frequent, her stories more animated. She does not send Devasena away, but plaits wildflowers in her hair as Devasena obediently practices the proper grip on a knife that the Lady has shown her.

“Always I dreamed of a daughter,” the Lady admits to Jayasena, not a little ashamed.

“Do you have sons, then?” Devasena interrupts cheerfully, and wrinkles her nose. “Are they  _dreadful_?”

“No,” says the Lady, voice as sharp as Jayasena has ever heard in his sister’s presence. “No sons. Not for me.”

On an impulse, he says, “Come with me, Devasena,” and pretends not to see the Lady’s grateful smile as they toddle away.

*

The Lady travels frequently. More often than not, she is away; when she returns from her peregrinations, she will answer no questions about where she has been. Jayasena fights back wave after wave of foreboding to produce a half-hearted welcome; he is always certain that she knows what he is thinking, and is only amused by it.

Devasena, at least, greets the Lady warmly enough for both of them. “Come and see what I’ve learned!” she calls, and pulls back her bow, or produces a new sword, or proudly displays a neat row of sums she’s completed. The Lady indulges her, clapping with what seems like sincere joy, but still, in the corners of his mind, Jayasena hears the promise of looming disaster.

In the evenings, Devasena sits at the Lady’s feet and demands a story imperiously. She does not speak of her travels even then, but tales at least, she produces. When Devasena is young, they are innocent enough: telling of a trader’s daughter who waned to save the world and the faithful hound which served its mistress to the brink of death. They grow darker with time: bloodier, angrier, and heavy with despair, but Devasena seems no less eager for them.

“….chained up in the center of the city,” Jayasena overhears the Lady say one night. “And as they tied him up, their words were only these: ‘A kennel for the Queen’s loyal dog.’”

“But that’s terrible!” Devasena’s voice is indignant. “How can anyone tolerate this outrage?”

“The day will come when he is freed,” replies the Lady. “Someone will be so bold.”

“Not someone.” Devasena raises her chin. “ _I_  will.”

Nothing more than a whim of a child, Jayasena tries to convince himself, easily replaced with a new ambition. Try as he might, he fails in this: he knows his sister all too well.

*

When Devasena is fifteen, she disappears for the first time.

She is not gone for long, hours at most, but Jayasena spends every minute of that time imagining her wounded or worse. When she returns, her cheek is bruised and her left arm held at an awkward angle, but her head is held high as she faces him.

“I meant to go to Mahishmati,” is her calm reply when he demands where she’s been; and, at his furious intake of breath, only adds: “I was unsuccessful, as you can see.”

Before he can order her confined to the caves for the rest of her life, she goes on: “But on my way, I encountered a troop of soldiers on their way to collect taxes of their own creation. Not only are their ill-gotten gains mine by right of conquest,” she throws a bag of gold on the ground, “but they were kind enough to also offer me the pathway that Martand’s next shipment of weapons will take when being delivered from the Chalukyas.”

The men and women around them buzz with approval, and Devasena sends him a smug smile. He cannot punish her in public after she’s announced such a victory; he can only do his best to persuade her never to do anything so foolhardy again.

*

Jayasena is not an unreasonable man. He does not blame the Lady for Devasena’s insistence on putting herself in harm’s way–-how can he, when the Lady was not even present the first time Devasena did so?

But Devasena slips away again, and again, and again, more often than not accompanied by others who’s she coaxed into joining her foolish quest of saving the prisoner who languishes in Mahishmati’s midst. Every time she comes back having defeated more and more soldiers but ultimately unsuccessful in her goal; every time Jayasena is terrified that he will see her no more.

He doesn’t understand the truth of the matter until the first time the Lady returns since Devasena’s excursions, and instead of running to meet her, Devasena hangs back, head bowed.

“I tried,” he hears her telling the Lady later; “I tried, but I failed. I wanted so to save him. Forgive me.”

Jayasena holds his breath. _Please,_  he begs the Lady silently, _please do the right thing. Please help her see it isn’t her duty to give her life to save this stranger._

 _“_ Perhaps you failed,” says the Lady, “but there is no shame in that. The only shame is when one stops trying.”

Devasena brightens, and she throws her arms around the Lady; the Lady appears quite alarmed for an instant before patting her on the back gingerly.

Jayasena’s heart sinks. He knows what he must do.

*

“You wish me to leave,” says the Lady, “and never return.”

“It is not that I am not grateful for your assistance,” Jayasena replies. “I am, more than I can ever say, certainly more than I can ever repay in this lifetime. Without you, we would not have survived. But I am….concerned that, that your presence here may cause us danger, should you have enemies, or–-or something of the sort–”

“You mean should I cause your sister to take up any causes,” the Lady says shrewdly.

Jayasena looks down, refusing to give her the pleasure of reading the shame in his expression.

“Devasena is a fine girl,” says the Lady, “in whose soul righteousness has taken root without my influence. Even had I never said a word to her, she would do the right thing, Jayasena. Still–-” she holds up her hand to silence his rebuttal, “–-since you ask it, I will obey. I will bring your people no further harm, nor ask anything else of them; as it is, I have placed my hopes in more than your people and your sister.”

At another time, Jayasena might have asked what she meant; now he does not quite dare. 

“May the Lord be with you,” are her parting words, “as I certainly shall not be.”

*

“Martand’s forces caught her,” Jayasena lies for the first time in his life when Devasena asks where the Lady has gone. “I fear they demanded her death for the good she’s done us.”

Devasena has seen too much loss to weep at such a thing, but her expression grows no less determined. Jayasena begins to realize how badly he’s miscalculated by the bitterness of her smile, but it’s on the following morning, when he finds her bed empty once again, that he accepts what he should have known from the start:

He will never be able to keep her safe. He will never be able to stop trying.

**Author's Note:**

> Vyalīka- (Sanskrit) reverse, inversion; lie, fraud, offence. 
> 
> For those curious: Sivagami surviving was actually an early idea that Maya offered when helping me brainstorm Vilomita, but try as I might, bringing her back in completely derailed the last third of the story to where it became sidetracked by Sivagami and Bhalla’s unresolved issues, and Devasena and Sivagami’s backstory, and where the heck Sivagami had been all this time. Seeing as how Vilomita needed to be Nandi’s story specifically, that big Reveal wound up cut. Again, hints to this remained in no one actually confirming that Sivagami was dead and in Nandi’s adoptive parents seeming unsurprised to hear of his backstory, unlike as in BB1, and stating “and so she gave you to us” when discussing how he came to them (as opposed to, oh hey, there was a random drowning lady with whom we found you.) But since I want Vilomita to stand on its own, I tried to keep those as minimal as possible.
> 
> As far as the Kuntalan backstory, Devasena mentions that she and her brother were orphaned at the age of 3 and 11; that is nowhere near old enough to be running a rebellion, so I always knew someone had to help them out. Also, Devasena knows far too much about Kattappa and his imprisonment for a random stranger from another country, and so having her be given her mission by Sivagami makes perfect sense in my head. Finally, Vilomita is all about character relationship reversals for me, so most of all I am tickled by the fact that in this universe, Sivagami is a virtual stranger to both Bhalla and Baahu, while Devasena is the one who knows and loves her!


End file.
